Product Designer

Context

We participated and won an award in a national service design contest organized by La Poste, the equivalent of the United States Postal Service (USPS) in France. We had to conceive an innovative e-commerce service.

1

The challenge

The future of La Poste

Everyday, thousands of mailmen drive their truck throughout the country in order to deliver the mail. But as sending letters is becoming less and less common, La Poste needs to widen their range of services towards new fields.

Mapping the actors

2

Design process

Supporting our process with service design tools

We spent the first phase of the project defining the service, building use cases and laying down the experience.

Exploring use cases

Laying down the service blueprint

« How to convert the infrastructure and the labor force already available into an innovative service? »

By using mailmen to deliver food from local grocery stores.

Defining the users

By using mailmen to deliver food from local convenience stores, like boulangerie, we wanted to allow elderly and disabled people to enjoy food products that were beyond their reach.

1

The customer

He orders his products from a comprehensive list of the goods available in his geographic area.

2

The storekeeper

Upon receiving the order, the storekeeper prepares the goods to send, just as he would for any regular customer.

3

The mailman

The mailman collects the goods that were prepared by the storekeepers and delivers them.

User scenario

Building a sensible and local service

To ensure that our service would have a positive impact on the local economy as well as on social equity, we built it with 3 main missions in mind:

1

Promote local grocery stores

Helping the merchants extend their clientele to customers who don't have the time or the means to get around.

2

The best quality for everyone

Putting local grocery stores within seniors' and persons with reduced mobility's reach.

3

Offering a wide range of tasty products

Bakery, butcher's, greengrocer, fishmonger's, dairy shop, delicatessen, wine merchant... are so many stores that can offer their goods.

Planning the mailmen's route

Aside from researching the customers, we asked ourselves how to optimize the driving route for the mailmen themselves, and how would the experience be interesting for them. An interesting point is that even though they already know the neighborhoods, they don't get to talk with the citizens anymore.

3

The application

Thanks to his zipcode, we know which products are available for a registered user

Easy navigation

We really wanted the user to be able to browse easily through the whole catalog, despite the wide offer. Which is why we used pictures to illustrate every single item. But sometimes, there is no available image for a rare product: an icon can then be
used instead.

The product hierarchy is always visible on the left,allowing for a quick tab-based navigation

Fast search

It should be very simple for a user to find the products he wants, which is why we used a dynamic search-bar and modal views.

The search-bar dynamically displays the products related to the search

We used a modal window to help the users choose from different varieties of the same product

Swift checkout

Choosing the address and time of delivery can be a pain for users that are not used to buying products online (older people for example). So we tried making it just as quick as simple.

The straightforward and minimal delivery interface allows for a simple ordering process. Even for the most inexperienced users, like older people.

Cross-platform app

Given the wide range of users, we had to ensure that everyone could have easy access anywhere, anytime.